


Love Is So Punk Rock

by marksist (Marks)



Category: Sakamichi no Apollon | Kids on the Slope
Genre: Canon Continuation, Established Relationship, M/M, Punk Rock, Yuletide, Yuletide 2018, some vague references to the manga but mostly anime-based
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 17:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17005983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marks/pseuds/marksist
Summary: Instead of the smooth, deep bassline he’s expecting, he can hear fierce, fast guitar drifting from the headphones.“Oh,” Kaoru says, out loud, and Sentarou opens his eyes and shoots him a brilliant smile. The headphones’ tinny guitar, if possible, gets louder and faster.





	Love Is So Punk Rock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [furiosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/gifts).



> Tried to do the AU set in a different time period with a different music genre and failed at that, but this is my compromise. Set both directly after the vague anime ending and maybe six months or so down the line, so the late 70's some time, just as coincidentally punk rock was starting to make inroads in Tokyo and Osaka. Hope you like it, furiosity!

Kaoru comes home from his shift and finds Sentarou lying on their rug next to their giant sound system, eyes closed and plugged-in headphones covering his ears. Sen taps his toes and nods his head without lifting it, making Kaoru smile. He thinks it’s probably Coltrane or Count Basie as he tiptoes across the floor and kneels down on the floor. He doesn’t know what he has planned, maybe pushing Sentarou’s shirt up so he can lean down and press a kiss to his stomach, since he can do that now, but that’s all derailed when instead of the smooth, deep bassline he’s expecting, he can hear fierce, fast guitar drifting from the headphones.

“Oh,” Kaoru says, out loud, and Sentarou opens his eyes and shoots him a brilliant smile. The headphones’ tinny guitar, if possible, gets louder and faster.

“Bon,” Sentarou says happily, like he hasn’t seen him in forever, even though Kaoru has only been out seeing patients for a few hours. But Kaoru supposes they’re still making up for eight years of missed hellos.

Now Kaoru does do what he planned, leaning over and pressing his lips to Sentarou’s belly. Sentarou squirms under the attention — he’s ticklish — but he doesn’t push Kaoru’s head away. “What are you listening to?” asks Kaoru, stretching out on his side and resting his head on Sen’s middle.

Sentarou stretches one long arm out and pulls the headphones from the stereo jack, slipping the headphones off his head as the loud music that had been contained by them floods out to fill up every corner of their place. The old island neighbors will surely complain if it goes on too long, but Kaoru can’t quite bring himself to work up the worry. The music is fast and rough, not the popular rock and roll that Kaoru expects, not even the hard rock that has started invading Japan the last few years. The lyrics are raw and full of hurt and political dissent, and Kaoru spares a stray thought for Jun-san before his thoughts naturally stray to the fateful day where he stumbled down the Mukae Records’ stairs and “Moanin’” changed his life.

This is that kind of music, even though it’s not jazz. But this is something coarse and rough, something new — and Kaoru-sensei, the respectable doctor who’s grown up soft and rich, has always been affected by this. Always.

“It’s punk apparently,” Sentarou says, nearly shouting so he can be heard over the din. He stretches again, this time to turn the stereo down to a less wall-shaking volume. “It’s getting big in Osaka and Tokyo now, though they can’t find anywhere to play — apparently, the bands are big on destroying, uh, everything. One of the kids at church told me about it and lent me a couple of records.” He grins, wide and guileless. “Bon, he couldn’t believe I didn’t know all about it. He said I was old and out of touch.”

Kaoru laughs against Sentarou’s skin. “You are,” he says and Sentarou balks. “You _are_ ,” Kaoru insists and sits up again, tugging Sentarou up, too. “You’re an adult, a square. Late twenties, giving up on your dream to become a priest so you can shack up with the island’s only doctor under eighty. Face it, time passed you by so you could spend it with me.”

“That doesn’t make me old,” Sentarou says. He smiles again, this one mischievous and promising, leaning in till he’s nearly speaking against Kaoru’s mouth. “That makes me punk rock.”

Kaoru never heard of punk before today, but he’s sure Sen isn’t using that right.

*

The two of them run down the slope, out of the church and reunited after eight years. Kaoru feels the weight of time as sure as he feels the wind through his hair, skidding to a stop just before he can crash, full body, into Ri-chan.

“You’re here!” she exclaims happily, her eyes crinkling up at the corners. “You’re both here!”

Kaoru hasn’t seen Ritsuko since he helped her out with an overbearing senpai five years ago, but she looks as radiant as ever. His heart is still racing from playing the church organ with Sentarou on drums, from Sen grabbing his wrist and pulling him down the island’s new but familiar slope, from Sentarou’s laugh ringing in his ears. He expects it to beat faster when he sees Ritsuko, too.

It doesn’t.

His heart is warm, yes; filled with love, definitely. All the gratitude and friendship he’s ever felt for the two of them never left him, even when he tried so hard to make it go away. He burned his jazz records. He gave away bright blue mittens to a patient in the hospital who had forgotten his. But you can’t give away feelings. You can’t burn them off with a match and some kerosene.

You can’t pick who you fall in love with; you can’t pick who you stay in love with.

“Rikko!” Sentarou says and picks her up around her waist, spinning her and spinning her, and when he puts her down again, they grin with all the familiarity they’ve always had for each other with none of the heat from Ritsuko. Kaoru can see that if he asks — if he says it out loud — that he’d know that she’d know exactly how he’s feeling right now.

After university, he hadn’t gone back to his aunt’s house. He hadn’t gone to Mukae Records, or to her dorms at the teaching college. They’d exchanged a few letters, a few phone calls, even fewer visits, and Kaoru had been content with that. It’s nothing like the itch that’s been under his skin since Sentarou left, the itch that took him from Yurika-san’s photo to a leave of absence to a boat on some remote fishing island that’s almost all hills. The itch is still there even with Sentarou close enough to touch.

Sentarou does touch him then, wrapping his big arms around Kaoru’s middle and spinning him around like he had Ritsuko, lifting him from the earth so his feet don’t touch the ground. He grins at Kaoru, his handsome face a hair’s breadth from Kaoru’s, and when he puts him down again, Kaoru feels like he might still be floating.

“Bon,” he says, husky and soft, nothing like the puppy-like exclamation for Risuko, “you came.”

Kaoru swallows and can’t look away.

Ritsuko sighs happily. “I’m so glad you two are here together.”

*

When Sentarou resigns from the church, he does it with a rebellious posture and Kaoru at his side. Kaoru isn’t Catholic, but he _is_ easily embarrassed, and he doesn’t know what will happen after Sentarou tells the head priest exactly why he can’t continue his candidacy. Kaoru’s afraid that showing up again in Sentarou’s life is doing nothing but blowing it up. He ducks his head.

Sentarou takes Kaoru’s hand, squeezes it while pulling Kaoru close to his side. He lifts his chin defiantly, like he always had when challenging authority.

“So we’re losing a mediocre priest,” the old priest says, and Sentarou opens his mouth, seems to reconsider, and closes it again. “So what?” the priest goes on. “Aren’t we gaining a good doctor in the process? The village is coming out of this with a win.” Kaoru’s head jerks up, surprised, and he thinks the priest is laughing at him. “Unless you’re planning on dragging Sentarou away from the home he’s made.”

Kaoru doesn’t know a lot of Catholic doctrine, but he knows what it says about two men together. He knows because the rest of society isn't much better. But the head priest has been the only priest on a small remote island for a very long time, and Kaoru guesses he knows you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

“N- no, sir,” says Kaoru, bowing in apology. “I want to stay here. Unless Sen wants to go.”

“I don’t!” Sentarou blurts out. His shoulders are sagged in relief, like the old priest’s approval made him deflate like a balloon as the fight went out of him. “I want to stay.” 

He turns to Kaoru, their hands still clasped together. They haven’t done much of anything yet, just too many slow, drunk kisses the first night after Ritsuko went back home, so Sentarou’s hands warm in his still make his cheeks heat up. It’s stupid how young Sentarou makes him feel, how much he wants to keep that feeling with him always, close to his heart. 

“Stay with me, Bon.”

“All right,” says Kaoru. He wonders if Sentarou realizes Kaoru’s making no sacrifices here; going back to his old life would be the sacrifice. Losing Sentarou again would be the sacrifice. He won’t. He can’t.

Sentarou grins huge, an expression Kaoru can’t help mirroring. The priest clears his throat after a minute, and Kaoru winds up bowing in apology again.

“You know, Sentarou, you should still come to church,” the old priest says. “The children will miss you if you don’t.”

*

The hospital where Kaoru used to work calls up, asking him to teach a week-long course on house calls and working in remote locations to their residents. He’s surprised and pleased when he accepts. When he tells Sentarou about it, even though they’re living together, even though Sentarou has seen Kaoru naked, he still goes red in the cheeks and actually scuffs his foot against the floor before asking if he’d come along.

Sentarou looks confused. “Why are you asking?” he says. “Of course I’m coming along.”

One night after a full day of lectures, Sen greets him at the door of their hotel, red-cheeked and grinning like an oversized kid. 

“What did you do all day?” Kaoru asks, covering his mouth on a yawn.

“Found something for us to do tonight.” Sentarou wrinkles his forehead and reaches out to touch Kaoru’s cheek. “Unless you’re too tired.”

Kaoru shakes his head. “It’s not fair to you if I have no energy for you. What is it?”

‘It’ is a rundown warehouse in a neighborhood Kaoru’s never been to. Loud music spills out of them and that same fast guitar that once came out of Sentarou’s headphones fills the whole huge space. People are dancing and spitting and drinking, and Kaoru doesn’t fit in at all. Or as he looks around, taking in two girls with metal glinting from their faces and their arms around each other, maybe he does. Two men kiss in front of him, the only time he’s ever seen that outside of his own mirror. There are angry people and people with different colors of hair and just people who must get stared at on the street, and Kaoru feels connected to them as the lead singer screams, unbroken and awful, and the guitarist knocks over two speakers with his instrument.

All the people in society that Japan wants to forget exist. Which, he supposes, now includes them.

Sentarou leans down and speaks into Kaoru’s ear. “This is too loud!” he says, surprising Kaoru into a laugh. “Let’s leave!” He drags Kaoru outside before he can even form a proper reply, but Kaoru doesn’t mind the cold night air after the packed, sweaty warehouse. Sentarou gets his arm around Kaoru’s shoulders and steers him into an alleyway. Kaoru laughs again as Sentarou presses him against a wall, pinning his wrists against the rough brick as he kisses him silly. After eight years, ten, it’s still shocking that he gets to do this with Sentarou — a man so beautiful that he’s always taken Kaoru’s breath away. He still does.

“You’re old,” Kaoru says breathlessly when Sentarou lets him up for air. Sentaro kisses the top of his head, his ear, his mouth again. “Leaving a gig early because it’s too loud. What would seventeen-year-old you say?”

Sentarou grins and pushes his cold hands underneath Kaoru’s sweater. “He’d say I’m punk rock.”

“He wouldn’t. You’re not,” Kaoru says, laughing open-mouthed as Sentarou kisses him again. Sen grabs his arms and pushes him against a wall, and Kaoru leans into it, leans far enough into his new life that he falls over the edge. “We’re not.”

But, really, they are.


End file.
